Chinese Spy Balloons Are Bad. Republican Screeching Is Worse.
It must be exhausting to be this moronic. And God knows Peepaw Pisspants needs a nap!
https://truthsocial.com/users/realDonaldTrump/stat...
Here on Planet Earth, none of this makes a lick of sense. Even if you discount the Chinese line that this is a simple weather balloon blown off course, the reality is that China has spy satellites and drones — and so do we! There is no way of knowing why China chose to float this thing over America on the eve of a planned visit between Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and President Xi, but the doomed dirigible caused major diplomatic embarrassment, and Blinken has now canceled his trip. If this was a ploy to make President Biden look weak, then it failed spectacularly everywhere but on Fox News.
There's also the inconvenient fact that China did the exact same thing multiple times during the Trump administration. So much for the boast that no one would never have dared encroach on American air space with that manly specimen of decaying blubber and petty grievance channel surfing in the Oval Office. Republicans have been reduced to shouting NUH UH and blaming Barack Obama, all the while counseling their patriotic followers to shoot pointlessly into the air while standing under it.
Reuters reports that the balloon looked to be deliberately hovering over sensitive military targets, something which they hadn't seen Chinese balloons do before. Similarly, the New York Times suggests that the advantage of balloons over satellites is their ability to "hover over a site far longer and [they] can pick up radio, cellular and other transmissions that cannot be detected from space," something the Biden administration anticipated and ordered the affected military installations to prepare for.
No one knows exactly what the balloon was doing, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if the Biden administration had taken it down over land and harmed one hair on the head of a goat grazing in East Asscrack the same Republicans cursing his lack of courage would be howling for impeachment based on his reckless endangerment of human life. According to Reuters, the military cleared the airspace above Billings, Montana, on Wednesday, but then decided not to risk shooting the thing down over land — something the Kurvy Kouch Brain Trust at Fox insists is a sign of dereliction of duty by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As soon as the craft reached the Atlantic, it was hit by a Sidewider missile fired by an F-22 fighter jet dispatched from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The debris field stretches some seven miles, most of it in shallow waters off the coast of South Carolina where we can recover the parts and possibly assess what it was doing.
Make no mistake, this is a serious incursion that raises questions that don't fit into a soundbite that can be replayed for partisan advantage. As the Times's David Sanger points out, China seems to have miscalculated badly, and then had no means to defuse the diplomatic crisis once unleashed. We've now got their balloon, and they've got egg on their faces. But there are no rational policy discussions to be had with a party reborn in the image of a spray-painted game show host obsessed with scoring points in an endless cycle of faux outrage.
This is no way to run a country. And yet ... what other choice do we have?
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Sean Hannity Knows What He'd Do If He Was Poland, He'd Be Like BAM! BAM! And Russia'd Be Like OH SH*T, YO!
Haha, we are hilarious. (If you do not know all internet traditions.)
Here is the audio, because it was on the radio:
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): This is now a NATO problem, but it's also a Poland problem. If I was Poland, I would immediately strike back at Russian forces in Russia. And you say, "Hannity, you're going to start a nuclear war." No, I'm not looking to start a nuclear war. I'm looking to prevent a nuclear war. I'm looking to prevent this from now getting far worse. The only thing that should matter here is that there be a quick and appropriate response.
Correction: It would have been a NATO problem if it was a confirmed hostile strike on Poland by Russia. It was not time yet for Poland to "immediately strike back at Russian forces in Russia," no matter how much Sean Hannity was enjoying this game of "If I Was Poland." Thank God he's not!
And you say "Hannity, you're going to start a nuclear wear." And the answer is yes, he could have, because if he had done that and it turned out the Russian strike was a mistake, then Hannity/Poland's strike on Russia would have been the first strike.
Of course, in one way we are happy to hear a Fox News primetime host be so willing to hold Russia accountable for its actions. He should have some friendly dad chats with the guy in the timeslot next to his.
For some reason that Hannity "If I Was Poland" monologue reminds us of how Hannity talks about his MMA workouts.
“We have days we call ‘keeping it real,’ ” he said. “And keeping it real is like this guy who’s so big and so strong, and he’s coming up to me all throughout an hour-and-15-minute session and putting me in chokeholds, seeing how I respond to a gun to my head. You know, how do I deal with blades? And then another day is pain day, and then literally you put out your arms, ‘Boom, boom, boom.’ ” He mimed a hammer-punching motion against his forearm and stomach. “It’s made me stronger than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Now enjoy these videos of Sean Hannity explaining more about how to be an MMA fighter, which he is:
Never, ever will not be funny.
OPEN THREAD!
[Media Matters / New York Times]
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